VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

(Letters)

November 03, 2007

Time to leave Taxville

This is in response to "Behind the great tax push" (Page 1, Oct. 21), by Tribune staff reporter Bob Secter.

There are storm clouds of fiscal mismanagement hanging over Chicago and Cook County. From these brewing storm clouds there will be heavy taxes raining on residents for years. Who is to be held accountable?

Todd Stroger says that it's better to ask for more money now than to have to come back every year and ask for it. Does Stroger think that Chicagoans don't know a con job when they see one? That's what he says now, as a lame excuse for wanting to ascend taxes to new heights. What will he say next year? If what he says is true, then why should a yearly budgeting program even be in place? Why not just do a five-year budget, so we don't have to come back every year asking for more money?

Mayor Richard M. Daley is the other storm cloud, floating about. At a time when he's trying to woo the international community into recognizing us as a city worthy of hosting the Olympic Games, he has now given the city the face of a heavily taxed, unfriendly to its citizens type of place to live. He's made Chicago look darker than the 5 o'clock sunsets we're about to experience.

And the third storm cloud of CTA fiscal mismanagement is raining salt on the tax wounds, from the city and county, of all us working residents who use the CTA to go to and from our jobs.

While, as the story claimed, voters may forget all this by the time the next elections for Daley and Stroger roll around, I wouldn't be too surprised if many people start voting with their feet in the next couple of years by choosing to abandon Taxville, this 21st Century, world-class, medieval-esque city/county run by the Tax Twins.

P.T. Baker

Chicago

Mayoral debate

Great commentary by U.S. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) ("Don't accept Daley's taxes; Rooting out waste and corruption better than hitting citizens for $293 million tab," Commentary, Oct. 17). Sounds to me like he's digging into Mayor Richard M. Daley's "flowerpots." Can a race for mayor be far behind?